Over 1200 quintals of wheat and over 200 quintals of sugar are rotting at 148 fair price shops of Panchkula district due to a technical snag in the software that was to be used for the distribution of ration among BPL families. Notably, the system was inaugurated by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on November 1 and from the very first day it has been crashing. The district has 40,200 BPL families that are given 161 quintals of wheat under the Antyodaya Anna Yojana and 1,080 quintals of wheat under the National Food Security Act. Due to a technical snag in the software, most of the BPL families could not be provided ration in November. Now, owners of the fair price shops have paid for the December stock, which is expected to arrive in a couple of days.The other major problem that fair price shops face is the lack of space for the December stock. A shop owner in Kalka informed that over 200 people visited his shop daily. “All these poor families are suffering as we are not allowed to distribute ration manually. The machines just worked once or twice and we are being told that the server is down.”District Food and Supplies Officer (DFSO) Meghna Kanwar said, “The National Informatics Centre was to update the software by December 10 but that has not been done yet. We may allow manual distribution of ration if the software doesn’t start working in next few days.” A private company, Vision Tech, had prepared the software and it is being run by the NIC.The DFSO informed 145 machines were being used for the purpose. It was previously run as a pilot project in some cities of Haryana and then implemented across the state.
[Source:-Chandigarh Tribune]
